An ada boy to Juan, fresh out of On-ramp, for completing his first “Murph”. Hey Juan, welcome to the jungle!

CrossFit For Hope

Hey 215ers, next weekend is CrossFit for Hope. For those of you that are unaware of what that is, it is a fundraiser produced by CrossFit HQ. If you are familiar with Fight Gone Bad, it is the new FGB. This year the local Pennsylvania and New Jersey CrossFits have teamed up to put on large scale event. Your own CF 215 has been spearheading this and the event is taking place in Manayunk at the Starfinder Organization on Main Street.

So what does this mean for you guys…? A couple things….

First, I would love it if everyone came out and participated next Saturday by doing the workout. All you have to do is show up next weekend or you can check back Monday for heat times and request a specific workout time. This workout will be challenging but doable. For more on the the workout and CF for Hope click here.

Second, I am still looking for some help both for set-up and volunteering / judging that day. Next Friday night we will be assembling a pull-up system at Starfinder. The more hands the easier and quicker this will be – fun too! If you can lend a hand meet us there at 7:30 pm or at the gym at around 6:30. The day of we need both volunteers, but most importantly judges. If you are available next Saturday from 8am to about 1pm please come out and help, I could really use your help.

If you have any questions about the event please don’t hesitate to ask. Check out the video HQ did on the Philly affiliates coming together for this event. Video Link

Training….
Here we are two weeks into our multilayer programming and I would like to check in with everyone to see how you are feeling. So far so good from a coaching standpoint. Most athletes are handling their training well and have been selecting the levels appropriate to their ability. There have been a couple questions raised which I feel would be best answered in a FAQ page so check back later this week for details on verbiage and nomenclature.

A few reminders about where you are with your layers. Don’t be too anxious to move outside of where you fit right now. You will lose nothing by training in the fitness level if you feel you are on the bubble. The difference between these two layers is not priorities or goals but rather more appropriate use of movements and time under tension given certain lifts. The Performance layer is not meant to be scaled nor are they designed for you as an athlete to cherry pick movements between the two.

Upcoming Events

WOD for Warriors (WFW) – May 27thThis Saturday is WFW and we will not run a normal 9am and 10am class this weekend. Instead, warming up for this event will start at 9a and heats will be set up from there. If you need to leave early please let Perrin know when you get there. The workout is a partner WOD just like last year and is sure to be a good one! Hope to see everyone there!

CrossFit For Hope – June 9thCrossFit for Hope is in two weeks and 215 is hosting this event. The event will take place at Starfinder in Manayunk and a bunch of local affiliates will be there. For those of you that are around next weekend the 215 family wants you there. the workout is the same structure at FGB but this year all proceeds will go to St Jude’s hospital.

There has been some confusion as to where you sign up for this event and unfortunately this is not a simple answer. To help us with organization that day and pre-assigning heats I am asking people to register on Eventbrite at http://pacfffh.eventbrite.com. To sign up to raise money or to make a donation please register at www.crossfitforhope.com.

Greetings 215 athletes!
As many of you already know, we are rolling out multiple layers of programming starting today. I wanted to take a minute to fully explain this. Although I have had conversations with most of you, I’m hoping this post will give everyone a little more clarity as to why we are doing this and more over why this is an inevitable evolution of a facility or community such as this.

As we have grown in size, the spectrum of goals and inherent abilities has become vast. In the end, there is no longer one line of programming, that even scaled, is one size fits all. In an attempt to maintain strength gains and intensity in conditioning workouts, programming needs to cater to each person’s goals and abilities. The three layers are designed to group you as individuals as best we can. For example, as early lifters, more time needs to be spent under tension in each set for lifts to strengthen the “supporting cast”. To maintain intensity, athletes need to be using movements that allow them to move as such. An example of this would be not trying to work on double unders in a workout but rather specific skill sessions. To explain this further, below is summary of the goals for each layer and assumptions made in both abilities and knowledge for for each.

Fitness
This layer is designed for those athletes who are simply looking to improve overall fitness by using basic strength protocols and high intensity conditioning, including but not limited to some energy system work . High intensity movements will consist of those that allow you to move quickly that have movement patterns you already know, as oppose to ones you are still trying to learn. Skill work time will be allocated to improve those movements that will be necessary in order adopt them within the conditioning portion of your training.

While many people may stay on this layer indefinitely, the underlying goal of this program will be to give you the necessary skills and capacities to be successful on Performance Level. Even if you are just out of on-ramp and know you want to do Performance training at some point, we encourage you stay on Fitness for a while until your body, mind, and skill set reaches such levels.

Prerequisites – completion of CrossFit 215’s On Ramp Program

PerformanceThis layer is designed for those athletes looking to train with a focus on improving their performance. Within this programming you will see some heavier weights in the conditioning component, as well as some more precision with percentages in the strength lifts. Some of the assumptions being made within the this cycle is that your gymnastics ability is a little stronger, and you have the ability to do most movements without the assistance of bands. In addition, you should the difference that you will feel when doing an 85% compared to a 90% intensity within a conditioning workout. Here you will see more specific work within the energy system training in an attempt to close the gaps on their specific parts, i.e. Anerobic Lactic Power vs Anerobic Lactic Endurance.

Both Fitness and Performance training will have very similar characteristics as far as the same primary lifts most days with some variance in the auxiliary movements from time to time. Conditioning components will have similar structures as well while changing some parts in an attempt to elicit the targeted dose response.

Competition
This will be our highest level of programming. Some of, but not all, of the assumptions here are that you have mastered all the gymnastics movements; including but limited to Muscle Ups, HSPU, high rep Double Unders, etc… These workouts will also usually take athletes closer to 90 minutes to complete, and are also on a specific training schedule as not to allow for over training. Competition training will take more out of you and ask more of you from a recovery standpoint. I am asking that you follow the protocol specifically within fitting it into your individual schedules. Those of you that want to do this training please speak to me individually.

In the end of the day, this is your training and you are free to do whatever you want to do here but I encourage you talk with a coach if you are unsure where to start. The goal at 215 has always been to give you an individual experience that maximizes your success given your goals. Training outside of your capacity and abilities will simply take away from that. The longer amount of time you spend within a specific layer, the stronger you will get, the greater your capacity will be in specif domains, and the more successful you will be once you move on to the next layer of training in 215.

The LAST thing I want to leave you with is if you feel the desire to talk more about your goals, because maybe they have shifted, or it is only know that you feel you have the basis to clearly define them, please schedule on a one-on-one with me and we can discuss this further.

Your team is heading down to Maryland this weekend, and they will do you proud. We are hoping to see a bunch of people this weekend down there for support. If you still have questions about logistics let me know. We will be doing dinner Saturday night, so let me know if you have any questions or if you plan to attend.

Schedule Changes for the Week

Most of your coaches will be at Regionals this upcoming weekend, and we will be leaving Thursday night. As a result of this unfortunately there will be some schedule cancellations later in the week. We are still working on coverage but please stay close to MINDBody (MB) and any class that IS NOT cancelled will show up on the schedule and any class that is CANCELLED will be crossed out on MB. Days to look for are Thursday PM, and Friday ALL day. Everything should be updated by tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

Schedule Changes going forward

As we grow and evolve, I have always said we will try new things and do our best to accommodate everyone. Recently we added an 8:30am class on Mondays and Thursdays. It has shown some mixed attendance. The Thursday class seems to be doing OK but Monday not so much… Starting next week there will be a 8:30am class on Tuesday instead of Mondays.

Rowing Series

Our rowing series starts next Tuesday night the 17th. This will be a great opportunity to add intensity to your workouts as Jana helps you gain more proficiency on the Erg. The Kinetic sequence of rowing on the Erg will also lend itself to helping with body awareness and control in other movements. Once this series starts, no additional attendees will be able to join. If you are thinking about doing it or unsure if this is something that you need right now please feel free to contact me. The short answer is EVERYONE in here has room for improvement on the Erg. Some of you may be unaware of how inefficiently you are pulling on the Erg. An opportunity to work with an instructor of this caliber is something that no other CrossFit facility can offer in this area. Don’t miss out, you will regret this as this may be the only time we run this workshop.

Strength CyClE

Next week we will be starting a new Strength Cycle (STC) . We are currently in what could be deemed as our off-season and so it’s time to “pick up heavy shit!” In order to be successful during this STC we need to do some testing first. This week will be testing of various strength lifts plus some benchmark workouts as well. Thursday and Saturday will be make up days and then the gym will be closed on Sunday. Make sure to get in this week and do you individual prep in addition to the group warm-up in order to prepare for Max Efforts (ME). It’s extremely important that you document all of your lifts and workouts so that we can look back on them after the 12 weeks for comparison. You will also need these numbers each week as your lifts will all be based on percentages of MEs. Again, if you have any questions feel free to ask one of the coaches during class this week.

Most may of heard that CrossFit 215 has qualified for REGIONALS! The Mid Atlantic Regionals will be held May 4th-6th in Landover, Maryland. It was quite a ride over those five weeks but we managed to do just enough to earn ourselves the last spot out of 30 teams. Despite our finish, don’t count out the 215 team as many teams who qualified higher will be losing people to the individual competition. Absolutely expect to see 215 make a good run at regionals and we would LOVE to have your support.

I wanted to take second to again thank everyone for their support and participation throughout the open. We could not have done what we did without pulling together as a team and a community. What made the experience so special for me was that we were not a facility who had the same six people post scores every week, it varied week to week and we were constantly motivated by each other to surpass our limitations. I don’t have one favorite moment from those five weeks. Instead the accumulation of every individual accomplishment by all of you who participated made this experience extremely rewarding. All of you who got your first _____! whether it was a muscle up, TTB, or chest(or other)-to-bar was incredible to watch. To all of you, your efforts were nothing short of inspiring. I encourage everyone to come down to Maryland and witness what we did all this for – it is definitely something to see.

Without further adieu, I wanted to take a second and announce the team that will represent Team CrossFit 215 in the Mid Atlantic Region. All of these individuals had numerous scores post each of the weeks during the open and they are all deserving of their spots.

I also wanted to acknowledge all of the guys that finished 4th, 5th, 6th, etc… each week. I know personally that I would not have have gotten the score I did on 12.5 if I was not staring at Jeff King’s score. He was sitting 3rd for 215 and I thought “I want that spot”, and I went after it. Thanks Jeff!

Accommodations for Regionals

We have booked hotels for the weekend and I have booked an extra room for anyone that wants to use it. Please let us know asap if you plan on coming down so we can reserve more rooms and have a plan. Help us rep the 215 and make our presence known down there. If you want to make your own reservations please check the event calendar for details about the event. WE WANT EVERYONE down there and WE NEED EVERYONE down there!!

Rowing Series

Starting this Tuesday at 6pm, the long awaited 215 Rowing series begins. This series will be taught by 215’s own Jana Heere. Are you having problems with the erg…? Let’s get it fixed! Many of you – yes, I am talking to you – don’t even realize how inefficient your rowing technique even is. This chica can fix it. When we were down at OTG recently, there was a noticeable difference in our rowing from other athletes and gyms… Come find out why!

The series will consist of 5 sessions of 60-90 minutes and a maximum of 8 people per series. This is a package so individual classes are not available. The program will run for 5 weeks, meeting once a week on Tuesday at 6pm.

This series goes on sale today, Friday, at 1:30PM and is first come first serve. It will definitely sell out so reserve your spot fast!

After five weeks of competition, the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Open has finally come to an end. We would like to congratulate each and every athlete and spectator who dedicated their time to make the experience possible. The performances that took place during the past five weeks were nothing less then inspirational. From all of the coaching staff at CrossFit215, you made us truly proud!

There isn’t a person anywhere who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can. – Henry Ford

Leading up to week five our team was sitting in 32nd place in the Mid Atlantic Conference, two spots shy of making it into the top 30 teams who will compete at regionals. On Wednesday, workout 12.5 was announced. A repeat from last year’s 11.6, this wod would soon become a milestone for many of us. Rachel S. walked into the gym on Saturday without ever having done a chest to bar pull up in a workout and proceeded to do 18 of them for a score of 70. It was a similar story for Meg, Jess and Jana who all found a way to grind through all seven minutes to complete the pull ups as prescribed in a workout for the first time. It was a valiant effort put forth by all who participated and demonstrated strength of will to push through one of the toughest workouts of the open.

On Sunday, after many of the scores were posted we determined we needed to make up some major ground on workout 12.5. A few of us collectively decided to gather together in the evening to attempt another go. For some, this was their fourth time attempting the workout since it was announced, with the third attempt being mere hours prior (Carlos…you crazy). A few of us stepped up big time and bested previous performances by staggering measures. Micah improved by 14 reps (94 to 108), Carlos by 8 reps (100 to 108) and Jana by 1 rep (104 to 105) which put our team in a position to make it into the top 30. Both Carlos and Micah had worked out earlier in the morning and it was evident by their performances they left everything they had on the floor. The sheer determination to do anything and everything possible to squeeze out extra reps left us all incredibly inspired and proud to call ourselves members of team CrossFit215.

After the scores were recalculated we were sitting in 29th place, but as time passed and the rest of the region’s scores were validated, we were bumped into 31st place, one place short of qualifying for regionals. Although this was a disappointing finish for our team, I know on behalf of all of the coaches and staff, we cannot convey enough how proud we are of what we accomplished over these past five weeks. The Open brought our community together. There were countless personal records shattered, huge goals achieved and enormous displays of strength and determination performed. As we move forward, we hope everyone is able to take these experiences and use them as the driving motivation to continue to improve as athletes and individuals.

Please congratulate Jana Heere for finishing 50th in the Mid Atlantic Region! Jana’s consistency throughout all five workouts have earned her a qualifying spot as an individual. Way to go Jana!

This weekend was packed full of intensity, ferocity, excitement, frustration for some, and huge successes for others. What are you going to take away from it…? As a whole it was definitely a success for 215. We still remain a contender for the regional level although we do have some work left to do. Hopefully you still maintain the belief that your limits are greater then you think. At the same time we all must continue to understand what it takes in order to push those limits further. Our goals as athletes are to be constantly evolving, improving on what needs improvement and to keep attacking our weaknesses. The sum of your accomplishments within these four walls can be easily expressed by our goals. Is the snatch a weakness for you…? Lets get after that then!

As we begin a new week, I want everyone to take only the positive from the weekend. If you hit your goal, as some of you did, use that momentum and carry it forward into week three. If you came up short, use that as motivation to fuel the fire. The most successful athletes, or people in general, have selective short term memory. If your performance was not what you wanted it to be, if you had an off day, let it go, and don’t hold on to it. At the same time, strip away the positives because that will be the fuel you need down the road. Don’t let the bad weigh you down. Remember that we are what we repeatedly do and you all repeatedly get back up when you fall down. You continue to walk in these doors and chase elite health, elite wellness and choose to train as performance athletes. For that I salute your efforts.

Here is the video from the In-House Competition. Stay tuned for our next one.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOrK2WPdXns&context=C3791498ADOEgsToPDskJoRofl2AMc5UWfToYDsxMF[/youtube]

As we undertake workout 12.2, remember that your limits only exist in a permanent state in your minds. All physical limits are temporary as we soldier on towards new strengths and new achievements. So today, you are limitless, don’t let your mind prevent you from doing what your body is cable of performing.

Today we will start warm ups for the workout at 9:30am so we can start the first heat at 10am. Strategy and technique will be covered before we start. Although we want you to be fierce as usual, we also want you to be smart. We will complete tomorrow as a team with no injuries and make smart decisions about our movements. Please pay attention to coaches as you attempt your lifts.

Some great scores have been posted already within 215, I DARE YOU to do better!

4 days agoby requisitefitnessThe @crossfitgames open officially begins this week! The Open is a five-week test of fitness for all levels of ability. It’s an opportunity to showcase your hard work and cheer on your friends. This year we’ve created our own scoreboard to crown the fittest men and women at RF! The workouts will be held every Saturday beginning February 23rd (week 1) for five weeks with heats running from 8am - 11am. If you cannot make Saturday’s and still want to participate, Friday, Sunday, or Monday will be available for make ups. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Register at Games.CrossFit.com under affiliate “CrossFit215” and sign

1 week agoby requisitefitnessit’s Friday! We hope you all had a happy Valentine’s Day • We are running a Valentine’s Day special - 14% off all memberships for one month through next week. Treat yourself or your friends and loved ones to the gift of fitness! DM or click the in bio today!

1 week agoby requisitefitnessDoes your gym have a physical therapist with office hours INSIDE the gym? • We are privileged to be able to work closely with some of the best practitioners in the area. If you’re looking for knowledgeable doctors who specialize in working with active populations then contact @trainingroom .gv today! • #Repost@trainingroom .gv ・・・ Now providing Physical Therapy services @ Requisite Fitness in East Falls. Dr. Nick will be in weekly from 1-8 PM providing one-on-one care for all of your musculoskeletal and performance needs. @nickperugini .dpt specializes in working with active populations and is ready to coordinate with you and your

2 weeks agoby requisitefitness“Why do YOU do it? The Open is a competition that gives structure and focused space for marching toward a goal. Anyone is able to pursue aspirations of reaching the highest level or achieving a first muscle-up. It starts with why, which leads to a choice, continues with a plan, gives way to a global competition, and carries on with celebration of the pursuit” @crossfitgames • #intheopen#requisitefitness#crossfit215#crossfit#fitness

2 weeks agoby requisitefitnessTHE OPEN! Coach @whatfredo is here to lay it all out with what you can expect • Who is it for? EVERYONE! RX, Scaled, Masters, Teens, Beginners, Veterans • When does it start? February 21st. We will be completing the workouts on Saturdays from 8-11am for five weeks • What…are you waiting for? Sign up today at www.games.crossfit.com under affiliate “CrossFit215” #requisitefitness#crossfit215#intheopen#crossfit#community

2 weeks agoby requisitefitnessStrong nurses ‍⚕️‍⚕️ • Did you know over 15% of our members are doctors or nurses? These men and women know the value of their own health and fitness. You’ll often see them at RF coming off a shift or about to head in. They make the time work on themselves in order to be more effective in their jobs taking caring of others. National Nurses week isn’t until May but we’d like to give a shout to some of these nurses who crush it week in and week out! #crossfitnurse#requisitefitness#crossfit215#trainwithapurpose#crossfit#health#wellness#fitness

2 weeks agoby requisitefitness#tbt The Open is less than 20 days away! The Open is a five-week test of fitness for all levels of ability. It’s an opportunity to showcase your hard work and cheer on your friends each week. We will be hosting the Open every Saturday beginning February 23rd (week 1) for five weeks running heats from 8am - 11am. If you cannot make Saturday’s and still want to participate, Friday’s or Monday’s will be available for make ups. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Register at Games.CrossFit.com under affiliate “CrossFit215” and sign your name on the whiteboard at the gym • #CrossFit#IntheOpen#requisitefitness#crossfit215

3 weeks agoby requisitefitnessThe Open is a five-week test of fitness. A challenge. Taking part in this contest looks different for everyone. Some will push themselves to go Rx'd, many will scale as needed and all will watch and cheer their friends. The Open is for everyone. We will be hosting the Open every Saturday beginning February 23rd (week 1) for five weeks running heats from 8am - 11am. If you cannot make Saturday’s and still want to participate, Friday’s or Monday’s will be available for make ups. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Register at Games.CrossFit.com! #CrossFit#IntheOpen#requisitefitness#crossfit215@liftingcultureapparel